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Communications breakdown

By Barry Fox

WHEN the millionth satellite receiver rolled off the production line of
British electronics company Pace late last month, science minister John Battle
was there to hold it aloft for the cameras. When the photographers were
finished, Battle handed back the receiver—which is just as well, because
it might not have worked with his video recorder.

Pace and video recorder manufacturers Sharp, Toshiba and Hitachi have failed
to keep each other informed of changes in the way their devices are supposed to
talk to each other. The result is that many VCRs have been left unable to
control satellite receivers.

The video makers recently launched a system called VideoPlus Deluxe for use
with satellite receivers. The original VideoPlus system, known in some countries
as ShowView or VCRPlus, lets owners program their video recorder using a simple
code number that is published in TV listings.

The VideoPlus Deluxe recorders use a built-in infrared transmitter to mimic
the signals emitted by a satellite receiver’s own remote control.

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But customers have been complaining that their Deluxe video recorders cannot
control their satellite receivers. Toshiba and Sharp have discovered that the
problem only affects Pace satellite receivers. This is because Pace has changed
its receivers’ control circuitry to respond to a new set of infrared pulse
codes. The VCRs are still sending the old pulse codes to the satellite
receivers.

Pace says it has been steadily changing the codes for its analogue receivers
since June 1996, to avoid interference between analogue remote controls and the
new digital receivers it will start selling next year.

“We have no secrets” says Janet Wilson of Pace, Britain’s market leader in
satellite receivers. “We are more than willing to communicate the codes to
manufacturers who wish to know them. We have responded to all approaches.”

But the manufacturers of the VCRs with incorrect codes are complaining that
Pace should have volunteered the information about the change. They cannot
modify the microchips in their VCRs before the New Year. It is pot luck,
depending on the age of a receiver, whether a Deluxe VCR will control it.

Sharp says that engineers from its factory at Wrexham in north Wales spoke to
Pace in January to check the current codes and was assured there would be no
changes. Pace now admits it changed the code of its popular receiver, the MSS
100, in March. Sharp only found out about this when a customer complained eight
weeks ago that his VCR was not switching his Pace receiver.

“Our engineers have only just heard about the problem, and they heard through
the Granada rental chain, not from Pace,” complains a Hitachi spokesman. “What
we now need is publicity so that people know it is not the VCR that is faulty.”